Vast numbers of men and women have always believed in heaven and hell as certainties. The fear of punishment in the next world has had a great deterrent effect upon many wicked persons. They have dreaded death opening the door to their damnation.
Reward for the good and retribution for the evil. Looking to the history of the origin of this belief among the cultured peoples prior to the advent of Zarathushtra, we find that the growth of ethical concepts led the early Egyptians to believe in the judgment of the soul in the next world. The heavenly tribunal was presided over by Osiris and his associates. Before each of these subordinate judges the soul had to declare that it had not committed the various sins which were enumerated before it name by name. Its heart was weighed in a balance. The soul that came out successful from the trial was escorted by Horus to Osiris who now awarded it bliss. Woe unto the one who could not stand the test at the seat of judgment, for a hippopotamus sitting on the watch pounced upon it and made a morsel of its diet.
The Babylonians did not entertain the belief in the reward and retributions to the righteous and the wicked on an ethical basis. The heavens never formed the abode of the dead. It was in the subterranean regions full of darkness and gloom where all the dead departed. Tired by the gloom and monotony of their imprisonment, the dead longed for an escape to the world where they had experienced joy during life. But the guardians of the lower world kept a careful watch and did not let the unfortunate incumbents escape to the upper world.
In the abode of Yama, according to the Vedas, was found sensuous enjoyment, sweet music was heard and milk and honey and wine flowed amid abundance of food. There was no sickness or old age or suffering. In the early period all souls went to the abode of Yama, but the later belief was that only the righteous abode in the heavens and the wicked went their way to the world of nothingness. Immortality was not inherent in man; he won it as a reward for his righteous life upon earth.
The doctrine of reward and retribution in the other world forms the chief part of the ethical teachings of Zarathushtra's Gathas.[1] All precepts in the sacred stanzas are generally accompanied by a repeated mention of reward or retribution in this or
- ↑ Ys. 30. 10, 11; 31. 14, 20; 45. 7; 51. 6, 8, 9.
